This clever title from Skip Pizzi, who writes:
... One recent study, conducted and reported by a respected music industry publication, The Lefsetz Letter, compared the overall music sales — both physical and digital — of the calendar year 2000 (the peak sales year to date for the industry) with sales in 2007, and found that the 2007 figures were down about a third (–36%) from the 2000 sales. ¶ Then Lefsetz compared the individual sales of each of the top 10 selling records for those two years with one other (i.e., sales of the #1 record of 2000 compared to the #1 record of 2007, #2 with #2, and so on), which you would expect to approximately reflect the same one-third drop — but they did not. ¶ Instead, the records that occupied each of the top 10 slots for 2007 were off from over 50 percent to nearly 70 percent compared to the sales for the records in those same positions for 2000. ¶ This substantially disproportionate drop for the bestsellers of 2007 indicates that music sales are clearly trending toward greater diversity and choice. ...
... Consumption patterns are shifting, and these may significantly affect radio formatics, particularly for music. ¶ Here are the high-level bullet points that influence any course corrections that terrestrial radio might consider:
- As blockbuster sales decline and niches grow in importance, music promotion will move away from traditional radio formats and seek more specialized outlets.
- As big names sell fewer records but continue to receive most terrestrial radio airplay, music labels will seek increased compensation to make up for sales losses through new royalty payments from broadcasters.
- Metadata matters, particularly for less well-known artists.
- One-to-many is giving way to many-to-many, and unilateral purveyors of taste (e.g., radio programming gurus) are giving way to “communities.” These virtual communities are defined along multiple axes, one of which is geographical. Terrestrial radio’s limited coverage can be turned to a strength for such localized communities.
- A potentially controversial point, but worth considering (at least academically): In terms of maximizing competitive agility, terrestrial radio ownership limits may be inverted. ...
Link: Radio World. Thanks to Kerry Swanson for the tip. --Dennis
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